Stamped Cards

There have been a lot of days lately that I’ve been sharing more than one card at a time. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to come up with ways to connect them, because I hadn’t planned ahead to consider how to connect them in the blog posts. Yesterday it was cards using embossing folders. The day before that, one stamp, two ways. I had a post where they just happened to both have no stamping, and another where they were both masculine birthday cards. With today’s post I wasn’t sure how best to link the three I ended up making. Two are food themed, but the third isn’t. They’re all different occasions, different colour schemes… But then I realised, and it seemed rather obvious, they all focus on stamping!

Card 1 – Citrus Mini Slimline + Envelope

Lemons – BO1, GY2, CT4, CT1

Limes – AG3, LG4, LG3, LG1

Oranges – BO3, BO2, BO1, GY2

My first card, pictured above, is a mini slimline card with a citrus feel to it. I started by cutting down a snippet of white to make a panel for my card. I then stamped a random pattern across it with the citrus slice from Love From Lizi’s Summer Fruits stamp set. This is actually a bit of a CASE of a previous card I made. Once they were all stamped out I started on my colouring.

I started with the lemons, colouring with my Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers. I worked from dark to light, not really paying too much heed to a particular light source direction. I mostly put my shading along the lines to give some dimension to the fruit. I tried to space out which images I coloured, to make sure the different fruit were spaced nicely across the panel. Once I was happy with the lemons I moved onto the limes, and finally the oranges.

I wanted to fill out my patterned design a bit more, whilst still having plenty of white space. As on the previous card, I did this by using Catherine Pooler’s Punctuated Party stamp set and Versafine Onyx Black ink.

Next I worked on the sentiment of my card. I wanted to do the eclipse technique, and I wanted the layers beneath to be black to help it stand out. I used Pink and Main‘s (retired) Thanks die (they have Big Thank You dies, as another option) for this. I cut it out multiple times from snippets of black, one of which I would also use as the mat for my patterned panel. I cut five in total, but only ended up using three, so I’ve saved the remaining two to use at a later date. I then cut the word from my patterned panel, making sure to keep the negative pieces.

I adhered the three black words together and then adhered the patterned version onto the top. Backing my patterned panel with double sided tape left me a sticky opening where I’d cut away the word, which I slipped the stacked sentiment into. I then used my reverse tweezers to carefully piece the negative parts of the patterned word into place, to fill the pattern back in. Finally I adhered the patterned panel to the black mat, and adhered the whole thing onto my yellow card base.

As I don’t have mini slimline envelopes I decided to make my own to match the card. I had some paper of the same colour as my card base, so I used that with my We R Memory Keeper’s Envelope Punch Board (I have a video here talking about how to use the punch board to make envelopes). I had to trim the top and bottom flaps a little as they were slightly too long once it was folded up. I decided to add some simple decoration by using the same citrus stamp all along the edges of the flap of the envelope.

Challenges:

A Perfect Time to Craft – Anything Goes

Addicted to Stamps and More – Die Cuts and/or Stencils

Classic Design Challenge – Anything Goes

Craft Roulette – Slimline or Mini Slimline; Yellow + 2; Tasty Treat; Polka Dots

HLS Anything Goes With Dies Challenge – Anything Goes With Dies

Inkspirational – Spots/Dots

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

STAMPlorations Summer Challenge – Anything Goes

TGIF Challenges – Decorated Envelopes

Through The Craft Room Door – Anything Goes

---

Card 2 – Oh Baby

My second card is a new baby card. Appropriate, as I became an aunt (again!) just over a week ago. My new little nephew is adorable, and his cousins (my twin nephews) seem to be quite intrigued by him. But I’m supposed to be talking about the card!

I started by cutting three snippets of card – yellow, red and orange – with the Onesie Confetti Cuts from Reverse Confetti (which I believe are now retired). I then stamped onto each of the with the coordinating Cute As A Button stamps, and heat embossed with clear embossing ink. I used super fine as some of the word details are very fine. The “the” and “is” on the orange one was still a little difficult to read even with using the super fine powder, so I very carefully scratched into it with my craft knife just to try to make it a bit more legible.

Setting the onesies aside I worked on my background piece. I chose a strip of blue and stamped the heart from the same stamp set with Versamark ink to create a tone on tone background. I didn’t heat emboss it as I didn’t want it to be shiny, because the other elements on the card already have some shine.

I was planning on adding a sentiment to the strip, but when staging the arrangement I realised there wouldn’t be space for it. Thankfully I think it manages without one, given the wording on the little onesies. With the arrangement planned out I picked up the onesises with some Press N Seal and put some liquid glue on the backs of them to adhere them to the strip. I then flipped the whole thing over and added a second partial layer to each of the onesies where they were overhanging the blue strip. This gave some more stability. I then adhered the whole thing to the card base with double sided tape.

The final touch was the addition of a trio of tiny hearts. These hearts are some of the leftovers I had from the interiors of my smaller snowflakes on my recent snowflake card.

Challenges:

Die Cut Divas – Die Cutting and Tone-On-Tone

Double D Challenges – Colors of Summer

Freshly Made Sketches – Sketch

Stock Your Stash – Oh, Baby

---

Card 3 – Sweet Christmas

My final card is a Christmas card, and I did some wreath stamping which is always fun. I first stamped my sentiment into the middle. The “sweet” is from Lawn Fawn’s Merry Messages, part of a longer sentiment. I masked it to stamp just the word “sweet” into the centre of my 4″ square panel, using Catherine Pooler’s Party Dress ink. The rest of my sentiment is from Lawn Fawn’s Tiny Gingerbread stamp set, which I also partially stamped as I wanted to stack it. The sentiment does have the word sweet in it, but I wanted the scriptier word from Merry Messages.

Next I placed the panel into my original Gina K. wreath builder template in my MISTI, and started stamping a wreath using the Christmas tree cookie which is also from Lawn Fawn’s Tiny Gingerbread stamp set. I stamped around one time, then moved the cookie stamp further out and set in between the cookies that were already stamped. I’m probably explaining that badly, but the picture shows it! All the stamping was with MFT Black Hybrid ink. 

Having stamped everything I started on the colouring. I coloured the bases of the cookies first. I just added a flat colour with my lighter shade, then darkened random edges on each cookie with the darker shade to give the impression of some areas been more cooked than others. I then went back to the lighter shade again and stippled it across to give some texture to the cookies.

Base – GB2, EB1

Icing – DG4, AG3, LG4, LG1

Drops – DR3, MG1

I coloured the icing of the cookies next. I of course went with green for an authentic Christmas tree look. I tried to go for quite high contrast in my colour to give the shine that icing would have. For the drops I wanted them to look like pink gum drops, and chose my colours accordingly. For further details I added shine to the icing, sugary dots to the gum drops, and stippled texture to the cookie bases with my white gel pen. I then also added more sugary shine to the gum drops with my Sakura Gelly Roll Glitter Gel Pen.

In order to extend my wreath panel to fill the card front I added another panel of the same white card to make it the length I wanted. I held the two pieces together with some washi tape and then, as I did on another wreath card recently, I used peel-offs to hide the join between the two pieces. This time I chose Apple Green Mirror Pinstripe Peel-Offs.

Finally I could adhere the panel to a card base. I took a moment to consider what colour I wanted to use. I’d originally been planning brown but it didn’t look quite right. I considered green and pink, and after getting a second opinion from my husband, settled on the pink.

Challenges:

Build Your Stash Holiday Cardmakers Hop – Christmas In July

Lawn Fawnatics – Fun With Food

Rudolph Days – Anything Christmas

Simon Says Stamp Monday – Food and/or Drink

Time Out Challenges – Hungry

---

I had a lot of fun making these cards, and I’m really happy with how all three of them turned out. They’re definitely all different looks, but they have stamping in common. I think the Christmas card might be my favourite. I really like the colours, and I also enjoy how the cookie tree wreath has an almost snowflake look to it, which ups the Christmas feel. But I also really like the other two in their own ways. Which do you like best?

Love,

Charlotte E (Lady Joyful) Email thejoyfulsoulcreates@gmail.com

*Affiliate links may have been used in this post. For more details on affiliate links as well as other ways to support me, visit this page.*